D'oh! Homer Simpson wins the Turner Prize in a decidedly uncontroversial year | Daily Mail Online D'oh! Homer Simpson wins the Turner Prize in a decidedly uncontroversial year comments Cultural landmark: Mark Leckey's video art featuring Homer Simpson won the prize A naked shop dummy sitting on a lavatory, a woman smashing china, and a collection of unwashed cereal bowls - it could only be the Turner Prize exhibition. And the winner was a video artist who used famous icons such as Homer Simpson and Felix the Cat in a 40-minute video. But there was one controversial element to this year's entrants - none were particularly controversial. Mark Leckey walked off with a £25,000 cheque with his meditation on the nature of film in popular culture taking in Felix the Cat, Homer Simpson, Titanic the movie and Philip Guston. Leckey received huge cheers as the announcement was made. He joked: 'I really haven't prepared anything ... I'm chuffed to bits. 'I'm reverting to my roots and getting Scouser as I talk. 'It's a big thrill. It's great to do something that has some kind of effect on British culture and it's part of British culture.

'This is good, it's good.' The 44-year-old Briton is best known for his film work, and according to a video presentation accompanying his Turner Prize installation he draws inspiration from popular sources like sci-fi movie Blade Runner and cartoon character Felix the Cat. He also explored contemporary visual culture with a film of Jeff Koons's polished steel Rabbit, and his art lecture Cinema-in-the-Round is screened in a reconstructed movie theatre at London's Tate Britain museum. £25,000 prize: Mark Leckey wins the Turner Prize 2008 at the Tate Gallery in central London Only three women have won the annual prize since it began in 1984, and expectations were high that a fourth would be crowned at an awards ceremony on Monday evening, since Leckey was the only man on the shortlist. The jury commended the 'intelligent, energetic and seductive nature' of his work. They said in a statement: 'With wit and originality, Leckey has found a variety of forms to communicate his fascination with visual culture.' This year's competition was marked by a lack of controversy, which has been a staple ingredient in previous years.

There were even whispers in the art world that this year's show was a little dull. Previous recipients include Gilbert and George, Damien Hirst and transvestite potter Grayson Perry. Some panned the shortlist of nominees for the £25,000 prize as 'a dud' and 'low-key'. 'Cinema in the Round 2007' by Mark Leckey, who won the prize When they were announced David Lee, editor of satirical art magazine The Jackdaw, was scathing about the offerings unveiled at the Tate in London. 'These are the scrapings of the scrapings of the barrel,' he said. 'This is nondescript work.' Mark Leckey, 44, who was the bookmakers' favourite, submitted two video exhibits, featuring Felix the Cat, Homer Simpson and a Honda car commercial. Three more video 'installations' were submitted by Runa Islam, 37, including First Day Of Spring, in which she paid rickshaw drivers in Bangladesh not to work and then filmed them. Another showed a woman smashing china in an art gallery.

Glasgow-based artist Cathy Wilkes, 43, created two supermarket checkouts manned by naked shop dummies, one sitting on a lavatory. The piece, entitled I Give You All My Money, also featured several unwashed cereal bowls. A mannequin is posed on the loo while another has her head trapped in a cage in Cathy Wilkes' creation: I Give You All My Money The final nominee, Polish-born artist Goshka Macuga, 41, presented three sculptures of glass and steel, said to have been inspired by romances between other artists and designers. Curator Carolyn Kerr insisted the exhibition had plenty to offer art lovers. 'It is perhaps the kind of work you get more from than something more sensationalist,' she said. 'For me, I thank goodness it's not the usual suspects.' The winner: Mark Leckey - Resident Poster: Film Studies professor Mark Leckey presents Resident Poster, one of a mix of old and new cinematic works Mark Leckey is a Newcastle Polytechnic graduate born in Birkenhead in 1964. He is now a film studies professor in Germany.

He presented a mix of old and new work including a final version of Cinema-in-the-Round, a 40-minute film of an art lecture he has given in different venues. And the runners-up: Cathy Wilkes - Selective Memory: Selective Memory by Cathy Wilkes, who hoped to scoop the controversial Turner Prize worth £25,000 Cathy Wilkes is a Belfast-born artist who studied in Glasgow and Belfast before settling in Glasgow where she has been active in organisations such as the Glasgow Women's Library. Her work has been seen at the 2000 Beck's Futures at the ICA, the Whitechapel Gallery and in the Scottish Pavilion at the 2005 Venice Biennale. She exhibited a new sculpture with elements used before, such as mannequins. I Give You All My Money also uses ephemera from her home. Goshka Macuga - Deutsches Volk: Goshka Macuga inspects her own work, Deutsches Volk, at the Tate Britain, London Goshka Macuga was born in Poland in 1967.

Her Turner show includes sculptures seen at the Berlin Biennial and new collages made from ephemera from the archives of Paul Nash and Eileen Agar owned by the Tate. They will now be taken apart. Runa Islam - Be First to See What You See As You See it Runa Islam explores the possibilities of film in her china-smashing work Be First To See What You See As You See It Runa Islam was born in Bangladesh in 1970 and studied in Amsterdam and then the Royal College of Art, London. Her work - which is mainly in film - has been seen at White Cube, the Camden Arts Centre, Tate Modern and the ICA. She exhibited three films, including Cinematography, which has not been seen in Europe before. Gilbert and George | Artist Index | Janet Lehr Fine Art, Vered Art Gallery "We don't have anything to say except with our pictures." - Gilbert "We don't want to think. It's exhausting enough without that." - George Gilbert and George are pioneers in using the medium of photography to create ‘fine art'. For almost four decades, Gilbert and George have occupied a unique position among contemporary artists and have built up a vast body of art that has earned them international acclaim.

These two ultra-modern artists work together as a duo. Gilbert Proesch (b. 1943) and George Passmore (b.1942) are seen in much of their art, deceptively appearing quite formal. They occupy so unique a position among contemporary artists that they have become a strong influence on the YBA [Young British Artists]. Gilbert Prousch, from Italy, studied art in Austria at the Wolkenstein School of Art and the Hallein School of Art and in Munich. Then he moved to England. George Passmore, from Plymouth, England, studied at Dartington Hall College of Art and the Oxford School of Art, which was at Oxford College as a part of the College of Technology that became Oxford Brookes University. The two first met on 25 September 1967 while studying sculpture at St Martins School of Art, now Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design. They refuse to disassociate their art from their everyday lives (together), insisting that everything they do is art. The pair regard themselves as "living sculptures".

They wore matching business suits, which has become signature dress for them, and it is very unusual for one of them to be seen in public without the other. They consider themselves 'living sculpture' and regard everything they do as 'art'. Gilbert & George live together in East London on Fournier Street, and have been in the habit of eating each night at the same Kurdish restaurant, with George usually walking there and Gilbert often taking a cab. In the 1990s, they owned a working men's cafe near their home in Spitalfields, and sometimes worked the counter. As artists they are very prolific, creating to date "one work every 12 days for nearly 35 years." Moving to the working-class neighborhood of Spitalfields in London, Gilbert and George revolted against art's elitism, naming their house "Art for All" and declaring themselves "living sculptures." Although their early work centered around Performance, the artists soon turned to video, photography, and drawing.

As early as 1969, the artists were given an exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, and by 1972-73 were frequently showing with prestigious galleries such as the Anthony d'Offay Gallery, London; Sonnabend Gallery, New York; and Konrad Fischer Galerie, Düsseldorf. Their use of black-and-white photographic assemblages first surfaced in 1971 and by the late 1970s had developed into gridlike photo combinations. The duo was invited to participate in Documenta 5, 6, and 7 in Kassel in 1972, 1977, and 1982. In 1980, the Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, organized a mid-career retrospective of the artists' work, which traveled to the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf; Kunsthalle Bern; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; and Whitechapel Art Gallery, London. In the first years of the 1980s, Gilbert and George added a range of bright colors to their photographs, emphasizing their slick, stylized, and cartoonlike appearance.

The content of the work of this period centered around urban life and the hope and fear associated with modern society. In 1986, Gilbert and George were awarded the Turner Prize, and in 1987 had a major exhibition at the Hayward Gallery, London. In 1989, Gilbert and George exhibited twenty-five large pieces dealing with illness and destruction at Anthony d'Offay Gallery for an AIDS charity organization. The following year, the artists created The Cosmological Pictures, which toured ten different European museums from 1991 to 1993. Gilbert and George also exhibited in Moscow in 1990. In 1992, their largest production ever, New Democratic Pictures, was exhibited at Aarhus Kunstmuseum, Aarhus, Denmark. This was followed by a solo exhibition at the National Art Gallery, Beijing, and the Art Museum, Shanghai, in 1993. In 1994, the artists were given an exhibition at the Museo d'Arte Moderna, Lugano, Switzerland.

They have since been the subject of major traveling retrospectives organized by Galleria d'Arte Moderna in Bologna (1996), Kunstmuseum Bonn (1999), and Tate Modern in London (2007), which traveled to the Brooklyn Museum (2008). They also represented England in the 2005 Venice Biennale. Gilbert and George live in London. They are best known for their large scale pictures, the earliest comprised of cheap banal postcards, as is "Cathedral World-1986". Later works are highly colored, sometimes backlit and overlaid with black grids where Gilbert and George themselves are frequently features in these works, along with flowers and youths, their friends, and echoes of Christian symbolism. Some of their pictures have attracted media attention through the inclusion of shocking imagery, including nudity, depictions of sexual acts, and bodily fluids, such as feces, urine and semen. The salacious titling of their pictures reinforces their shock value. A book, The Complete Pictures, 1971-2005, published in 2007 by Tate Modern, includes over a thousand examples of their art.

In May 2007, Gilbert and George were the subject of the BBC documentary Imagine, presented by Alan Yentob. At the end of the programme a picture entitled 'Planed' was made available as a free file download from the BBC and The Guardian websites for 48 hours. People who downloaded the files could then print and assemble the piece, and thus own an original Gilbert and George picture for free.[8] Gilbert and George have won the most prestigious and coveted awards including the Turner Prize in 1986, South Bank Award 2007, Lorenzo il Magnifico Award(Florence) 2007, Special International Award(LA) 1989, Regione lazio Award(Torino) 1981. They have represented the UK at the 2005 Venice Biennale.

Works by the artists are in all your major international museums including including: The Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco; Art Institute of Chicago; The National Gallery of Art, Washington DC; Minneapolis Institute of Arts; The Tate Gallery, London; Tate Modern, London; The Centre Georg Pompidou, Paris; Migros Museum, Zurich; Musée d´Art Contemporain, Bordeaux; Museum Ludwig, Cologne; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; SMAK Gent; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; National Gallery of Australia, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Tasmanian Museum; Art Gallery and Art Gallery of Western Australia; Castello di Rivoli, Turin; Groninger Museum, Groningen; Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg; and the Musée d´Art Contemporain, Bordeaux; An important source for modern and contemporary American & European Art in East Hampton, New York & worldwide, Janet Lehr Fine Art / Vered Gallery's spectacular wide-ranging inventory consists of unique paintings, drawings, large & small scale sculpture, monotypes, prints and photographs by Ansel Adams, Milton Avery, Richard Avedon, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Romare Bearden, Fernando Botero, Cartier-Bress

on, Marc Chagall, Alvin Langdon Coburn, Willem De Kooning, Richard Diebenkorn, Thomas Eakins, Childe Hassam, David Hockney, Winslow Homer, Wolf Kahn, Jeff Koons, Fernand Leger, Roy Lichtenstein, Man Ray, Thomas Moran, Henry Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock, Robert Rauschenberg, Mark Rothko, Cindy Sherman, Charles Sheeler, Bert Stern, Alfred Stieglitz, Andy Warhol, Carleton E Watkins, Tom Wesselmann and Andrew Wyeth.

To bookmark Vered Gallery website: View synoptic biography below. 10 Famous British Artists Who Exhibited at the Venice Biennale 10 Famous British Artists Who Exhibited at the Venice Biennale Lucy Saldavia Updated: 28 December 2016 The Venice Biennale is the world’s most prestigious international art exhibition, displaying work by prominent artists from all over the world. Many artists who exhibit at the Venice Biennale go on to become household names, helped by the exposure and acclaim of the event. We highlight ten top artists who represented Great Britain at the British Pavilion before going on to become some of the most well-known figures in modern British art. ‘Reclining Figure’ (1951) by Henry Moore | © Solipsist/WikiCommons 1948, 1952, and 1954 – Henry Moore Considered to be the seminal figure in British sculpture, Henry Moore (1898-1986) is known for his large-scale, semi-abstract sculptures in bronze and marble, which explore the human form. His sculptures can today be seen as public works around the world.

Moore exhibited three times at the Venice Biennale at the height of his fame in the 1940s and 50s. His work had an enduring influence on modernist sculpture even after his death in 1986, and he has been the subject of countless retrospectives at major galleries around the world. ‘Three Studies of Lucian Freud’ (1969) by Francis Bacon | © Soerfm/WikiCommons 1954, 1968, and 1978 – Francis Bacon Margaret Thatcher once described him as ‘the man who paints those dreadful pictures,’ but Francis Bacon nevertheless remains one most famous British figurative painters of the 20th century. His raw, expressive style of painting twisted and distorted the faces and bodies of his subjects almost to abstraction. Often depicting the artist’s friends and lovers, his work evokes post-war melancholy and alienation. Bacon exhibited three times at the Venice Biennale, and major surveys of his work have been held at major institutions including the Tate Britain , the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

‘Benefits Supervisor Sleeping’ (1995) by Lucian Freud | © Art Sumo/Flickr 1954 and 1982- Lucian Freud Known for his portraiture (particularly his fleshy nudes), Lucian Freud (1922-2011) exhibited at the 1954 Venice Biennale early in his long career, and again in 1982. While his early method displayed a controlled formality, exemplified by works like ‘Girl with a Kitten,’ Freud soon developed his own genre-defying brand of realism, using thick impasto paint to render faces and bodies in harsh, clinical detail. He often painted people he knew, saying, “I paint people, not because of what they are like, not exactly in spite of what they are like, but how they happen to be.” Freud remains one of the most well-known British artists, and recent retrospectives of his work have been held at the Tate Britain, the Museum of Modern Art, and the National Portrait Gallery.

‘Just what is it that makes today’s homes so different, so appealing?’ (1956) by Richard Hamilton | © Ian Burt/Flickr 1976 and 1993 – Richard Hamilton Recently the subject of a major retrospective at the Tate Modern, Richard Hamilton (1922-2011) is a British pop artist, known for his paintings and collage work. His most famous collage, ‘Just what is it that makes today’s homes so different, so appealing?’ is considered to be one of the earliest examples of pop art. Hamilton first exhibited work at the Venice Biennale’s British Pavilion in 1976, and again in 1993, where he also won the prestigious Leone d’Oro for Lifetime Achievement . ‘Lions Balls’ (2008) by Gilbert & George | © Lehmann Maupin Gallery/Flickr 1972, 1978, 1980, 1993, and 2005 – Gilbert and George Idiosyncratic duo Gilbert and George have exhibited at the Venice Biennale five times.

They are known for their early performance pieces (notably ‘The Singing Sculpture,’ in which the artists sang Flanagan and Allen’s song ‘Underneath the Arches’ for hours on end from atop a table) and their graphic, photo-based artworks. Their slogan ‘Art for All’ reflects Gilbert and George’s anti-elitist approach to contemporary art . Their 2005 retrospective at the Tate Modern was the largest retrospective the gallery has ever hosted. ‘Cloud Gate’ (2006) by Anish Kapoor | © beautifulcataya/Flickr 1982, 1990, and 1993 – Anish Kapoor Anish Kapoor (1954- ) was born in Bombay , and moved to London to study art in the early 1970s. His monumental biomorphic and geometric sculptures vary in color, scale, and form, exploring negative space and evocative shape to create mythological resonances. Many of his most famous works are public sculptures, including ‘Cloud Gate’ in Chicago’s Millennium Park and ‘ArcelorMittal Orbit’ in London’s Olympic Park.

Kapoor participated in the Venice Biennale in 1982, 1990 (where he won the Premio Duemila), and 1993. He won the Turner Prize in 1991, and continues to exhibit at major institutions around the world. ‘The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living’ (1991) by Damien Hirst | © Massimo Carelli/Flickr 1993 – Damien Hirst As one of the most expensive living artists in the world, with work regularly fetching seven- or eight-figure sales, Damien Hirst (1965- ) is a formidable figure in the contemporary art world. Hirst is one of the leading figures from the Young British Art (YBA) movement of the 1990s. His best-known work, a shark suspended in formaldehyde entitled ‘The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living,’ is typical of Hirst’s art, which invariably investigates the lines between life, death, and art. His work is often controversial due to its difficult subject matter; however, Hirst remains one of the most infamous and popular artists of his generation.

‘My Bed’ (1998) by Tracey Emin | © National Art Collective/Flickr 2007 – Tracey Emin Another YBA , Tracey Emin (1963- ) is known for her highly personal and confessional paintings, neons, drawings, readymades, and installations. Her 1999 Turner Prize nominated ‘My Bed’ consists of the artist’s bed in an abject state after a period of suicidal depression: condoms, tampons, tissues, slippers, and bloodied underwear litter the unmade sheets. The work caused a media furor, and catapulted Emin to notoriety. Her unapologetically intimate work engages with universal emotions, closing the gap between the artist’s personal life and the viewer. Emin represented Great Britain at the 2007 Venice Biennale. ‘My Bed’ has recently returned to the Tate Britain for the first time since its Turner Prize nomination, and will be on display at the gallery until June 2016.

Still from ‘Deadpan’ (1997) by Steve McQueen | © Anne Bruggenkamp/Flickr 2009 – Steve McQueen Steve McQueen (1969- ), director of 2012’s Best Picture Oscar winner 12 Years a Slave , is also a critically acclaimed video artist. In 1999, his film piece ‘Deadpan’ beat out Tracey Emin’s infamous ‘My Bed’ for that year’s Turner Prize. His video works blur the line between the worlds of art and film, often exploring complex themes of race, sex, and human vulnerability. McQueen exhibited at the 2009 Venice Biennale and continues to make highly successful films and video art. Photo from Nud Nob exhibition by Sarah Lucas at Gladstone Gallery | © Lorenz Seidler/Flickr 2015 – Sarah Lucas Like Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin, Sarah Lucas (1962- ) is one of the most enduring artists of the YBA generation, and will represent Great Britain at this year’s Venice Biennale.

Often using food and furniture to represent the body in sculptures and photographs, Lucas’s work revels in bawdy visual puns and humorous euphemisms. It is confrontational and crude, yet also highly conceptual and referential. ‘Two Fried Eggs and a Kebab,’ which is composed of exactly what its title suggests, reduces the female body to its base sexual parts, provoking both disgust and amusement from its viewers. In 2013, the Whitechapel Gallery hosted a major retrospective of Lucas’s work. 2015 will mark the first year Sarah Lucas represents Britain at the Venice Biennale. Turner Prize School of Art [ BBC News ] You could call Wright’s art Minimalist, but it is also luxurious [ Independent ] Richard Wright Wins Turner Prize [ Financial Times ] Fresco Painter Richard Wright Wins Turner Prize [ Reuters ] Groupon Class Action Suits Challenge Online Coupon Business. Mondaq Business Briefing July 21, 2011 In the latest action to be filed in a series of class action lawsuits against Groupon, Inc., Carlos Vasquez filed a complaint on March 8, 2011 in the U.S.

District Court for the District of Columbia on behalf of himself and other similarly situated consumers alleging that Groupon places unlawful expiration dates on its gift certificates. see here groupon houston The action is preceded by similar class action suits pending in Illinois, Minnesota, California and Florida federal courts. In the complaint, Vasquez alleged that he purchased a $20 coupon for a one-month gym membership valued at $305, and the coupon expired two months later before he had the opportunity to use it. Because Vasquez was not aware that he could seek redress with the gym retailer, he claims that he lost the money that he invested. The suit alleges that Groupon’s sale of coupons with short-term expiration dates is deceptive and illegal under state and federal laws. Specifically, the complaint states that Groupon is in violation of the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act (the CARD Act) and the Electronic Funds Transfer Act (EFTA), which prohibit the sale and issuance of gift certificates with expiration dates of less than five years after the date of issuance.

However, under the definitions covered by the CARD Act, EFTA and the implementing rule Regulation E, a “gift certificate” and “gift card” must be issued “in a specified amount.” Clarifying the meaning of “specified amount” under the rule, the official staff commentary of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors states that “the rule does not apply to gift certificates or gift cards that entitle the cardholder to a specific ‘experience,’ such as a hotel stay or a golf lesson,” and expresses concern that sponsors of ‘experience’ cards would have to raise prices to adjust for anticipated cost increases over a five-year period if the five-year minimum expiration period applied. Despite the federal statutory definition of “gift card” and “gift certificate,” the complaint seeks to include the defendant’s gym membership coupon as falling within scope of the CARD Act and EFTA. The complaint also charges Groupon with breach of contract and violations of the District of Columbia’s Consumer Protection Procedures Act. In addition, the suit alleges that Groupon preys on unsuspecting consumers through its sales process whereby gift certificates are placed on sale and consumers feel pressured to act quickly – usually within 24 hours – to purchase the gift certificates under burdensome conditions.

It further states that consumers “often cannot take advantage of and/or use the product or service they paid for before the expiration date unilaterally imposed” by Groupon. The complaint includes a sampling of internet postings by consumers who expressed frustrations about Groupon’s expiration dates, and states that “thousands of consumers have lost money” because of short-term expiration dates. The suit seeks restitution, disgorgement of monies that Groupon obtained as a result of the conduct at issue, compensative and punitive damages, attorneys’ fees and a court order enjoining Groupon from engaging in these practices and requiring the company to fund an advertising campaign to remedy its allegedly lawful conduct. see here groupon houston With similar class action suits pending against Groupon, it is unclear how courts will view the company’s practice of selling gift certificates with short-term expiration dates. However, after settling a lawsuit brought in Chicago last year, Groupon changed its terms of service to allow consumers to get refunds in cases where a merchant refuses to honor a coupon that is arguably still valid under state law.

Because websites offering daily deals and discount coupons have significantly increased in numbers and popularity, the Groupon suits have the potential to affect many key players utilizing this business model and may shape how existing state and federal gift card laws will applyto online coupon services. THE BOTTOM LINE Recent class action lawsuits brought against Groupon allege that its online discount coupons are subject to the five year federal minimum expiration period for gift cards as well as to relevant individual state expiration requirements, and may determine how these state and federal gift card legislation laws apply to online discount coupon providers. The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.

Mr Joseph Lewczak Davis & Gilbert 1740 Broadway New York UNITED STATES Click Here for related articles When most artists’ prices are decreasing in a recession, a few go up: Italian Maurizio Cattelan is one of those who thrive in the tough economic times, an analysis of his work reveals some truths on the variables of the art market [The Economist] Damien Hirst posing in front of his work via ARTblog + As art fairs struggle to retain exhibitors, a new modern and contemporary fair in Abu Dhabi signs up forty-eight names, including PaceWildenstein, Gagosian, Acquavella and White Cube [Lindsay Pollock] related 50 paintings from the New York Guggenheim Museum to be shown in Abu Dhabi [Arts Abu Dhabi] ‘Fuego Flores’ by Jean Michel Basquiat via Auction Publicity Gilbert & George, “Jackshit,” at White Cube Mason’s Yard . The White Cube is hosting Gilbert & George’s “Jack Freak Pictures,” the largest series ever by the artists. Both the Hoxton and Mason’s Yard galleries will be home to the paint collection, of selections also showed at Berlin’s Arndt & Partner.

The exhibition quite literally makes freaks of Jack as in the Union Jack. Set in the East End of London, “Jack Freak Pictures” is peopled with medals, maps, street-signs and other recognizable symbols of British identity. The series is in line with other works by Gilbert & George, who subsume identity questions surrounding sexuality, religion, and nation into the provocative colors which their grid pictures confine. Related links: The British Museum has raised 2/3 of the $200 million for its new Herzog & de Meuron-designed wing [Bloomberg] Hirst’s recurring butterfly imagery adorns Lance Armstrong’s bike frame via Designweek A breakdown of ArtNews’s Top 200 Collectors: 81% collect contemporary, 34% collect modern, 9% collect Impressionist, and 9% collect Old Masters [ArtNews] Digital rendering of Claude and François-Xavier Lalanne’s menagerie on New York’s Park Avenue via NY Times From Sept. 13 through Nov.

20, Claude and François-Xavier Lalanne’s animal menagerie will adorn the medians between 52nd and 57th Streets in Midtown Manhattan [NY Times] Franz West’s The Ego and the Id via the The Public Art Fund The Castlestone art fund is buying Post War art from deceased and non-producing artists such as Picasso and Warhol as it posits that pricing has dropped 20-40% from last year [International Advisor via ArtMarketMonitor ] and a related email gaffe from Castlestone [ArtNewspaper] Performance view of Anselm Kiefer’s ‘Am Anfang’ via Opera de Paris In related, contemporary artist Zhang Huan will design and direct a 250 year anniversary production of Handel’s Semele in Brussels for the 2009/10 season [ArtDaily] A new Banksy mural in Africa via SlamxHype Charles Saatchi has replaced his Abstract America show his Kings Road gallery for an installation promoting the Jaguar XJ [Vogue] John Morton at the site of his sound installation in Central Park via NY Times A brush fire near Getty Center caused Getty museum officials to evacuate 1,600 visitors and 80

0 employees [LA Times] Michael Jackson series by Andy Warhol via ArtDaily A portrait of Michael Jackson by Andy Warhol is dropped from a NY auction after overwhelming inquiries [ArtDaily] Abu Dhabi Art, a new art fair, will debut in November [Artinfo] A “plinther” participant in Antony Gormley’s One & Other via The Guardian THE SEEN | Chicago's International Online Journal » Archive GILBERT & GEORGE // WHITE CUBE BERMONDSEY LONDON » THE SEEN | Chicago's International Online Journal Tweet by Kostas Prapoglou Gilbert & George’s current exhibition at White Cube in Bermondsey, entitled THE BANNERS , entails a series of ten new works, each of which is duplicated three times and colonizes the whole of the gallery space.

Evocative of protest banners, all thirty watercolor paper mounted on linen works follow the same template and scale. Each begins with a single text line in red paint stating “Gilbert and George say:” followed by a larger font in black spray can paint embracing a melange of subversive slogans such as “BAN RELIGION,” “DECRIMINALISE SEX,” and “FELLATIO FOR ALL”. None of the works are framed; all are hung directly on to the walls by three brass eyelets fixed to each piece. Gilbert & George are famous and infamous for their provocative and controversial visual lexicon and have built a strong tradition of eccentric, radical, and pugnacious cross-disciplinary art practice— embodying performance, sculpture, and painting since they first met as students at St Martin’s School of Art in 1967.

The idiosyncratic character of their work has been appreciated or depreciated by art enthusiasts worldwide through their innumerable landmark art exhibitions, such as the Turner Prize which they won (1986), the 51st Venice Biennale (2005), their major retrospective at Tate Modern (2007), among solo shows at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York and the Philadelphia Museum of Art (both in 2008). View of the exhibition THE BANNERS. Presented at the White Cube from November 25, 2015 to January 24, 2016. Photo: Yu Yigang Despite their confrontational temperament, the duo is widely known for their conservative political stance and their occasional statements of praise for Margaret Thatcher and royalty. Gilbert & George say-: GOD SAVE THE QUEEN (2015) is a lucid proclamation openly rendering their conservatism. However, this orthodoxy is juxtaposed against the propensity to challenge the system through severe aphorisms that imitate anarchist tropes—the surfaces of the work act as an awkward oxymoron.

It seems quite nebulous what Gilbert & George envisage to attain by occupying a blue-chip gallery space with anti-conformist banners in a pseudo-activist fashion. One could argue that Gilbert & George have turned the tables—by deconstructing the conception of activism to somehow reshape it, simulating its aesthetics toward a fashionable and, unsurprisingly, marketable product. View of the exhibition THE BANNERS. Presented at the White Cube from November 25, 2015 to January 24, 2016. Photo: Yu Yigang The fact that this exhibition has received mixed reviews is not coincidental—it has been said that this latest body of work appears outstandingly outdated and old-fashioned. Exhibiting these plain text pieces in a form of contemporary commandments—there are ten, after all— infusing them with rage and degradation hardly succeeds in achieving anything. Where the work fails to shock or challenge viewers, the slogans emerge as obsolete and almost fossilized through the prism of the current political affairs.

While Gilbert and George say-: FUCK THE TEACHERS (2015) or Gilbert & George say-: BURN THAT BOOK (2015) the work functions at quite a distance from topical issues of socio-economic unrest, or contemporary artistic practice and discourse. But if for a minute we forget Gilbert & George’s elitism and their inevitable relationship with the international art market, their show has the potential to fabricate equivocal readings. Although the works on display could echo random graffiti found on any city’s walls and protest banners, the work emanates a series of ironic and yet satirical statements inspired by the national and global political scene, while at the same time consciously ignoring prominent issues such as immigration, terrorism and war. Declarations such as “FUCK THE PLANET” could, in fact, fit perfectly well within the wider context of the decline of the earth and the degeneration of the human race. In this context, Gilbert & George suddenly become brutally topical, accentuating pragmatic, relentless facts. The viewer is consequently invited to decide which approach fits the bill. View of the exhibition THE BANNERS.

Presented at the White Cube from November 25, 2015 to January 24, 2016. Photo: Yu Yigang Despite any given circumstance, the two artists are present and continue to stimulate their audience in every possible way, playfully orienting and disorienting them towards objective and subjective realities. Gilbert & George, THE BANNERS at White Cube Bermondsey London runs through January 24, 2016. Dr Kostas Prapoglou is an archaeologist-architect, art writer, critic and curator based in London, UK and Athens, Greece. Gilbert & George, Awards, Political stances, Jack Freak Pictures Gilbert & George : biography 17 September 1943 - A book, The Complete Pictures, 1971–2005, published in 2007 by Tate Modern, includes over a thousand examples of their art. In May 2007, Gilbert & George were the subject of the BBC documentary Imagine, presented by Alan Yentob.

At the end of the programme a picture entitled 'Planed' was made available as a free file download from the BBC and The Guardian websites for 48 hours. People who downloaded the files could then print and assemble the piece, and thus own an original Gilbert and George picture for free.Imagine, documentary aired on BBC television, 8 May 2007 In 2000, they moved galleries to be represented by White Cube and since 2009 by ARNDT in Berlin. Awards In 1981, Gilbert & George won the Regione Lazio Award (Torino), in 1986, the Turner Prize, and in 1989, the Special International Award (Los Angeles). In 2005, they represented the UK at the Venice Biennale. Their 2007 retrospective at Tate Modern was the largest of any of the artists who have had retrospectives there. In 2007, they won the South Bank Award, as well as the Lorenzo il Magnifico Award (Florence). In December 2008, Gilbert & George were awarded Honorary Doctorates by London Metropolitan University.

In October 2010, Gilbert & George were awarded the honorary title "Magister Artium Gandensis" by University College Ghent.Tollenaere, Rudy. Nieuwsblad. October 8, 2010. In November 2010, Gilbert & George were conferred with Honorary Doctorates by the University of East London."East London the place to be", say ground-breaking artists University of East London November 25, 2010. In March 2012, Gilbert & George were conferred with Honorary Doctorates by the Open University.Andrew Brewerton awards Honorary Degree to Gilbert & George Plymouth College of Art, May 25th, 2012. Political stances Gilbert & George are an oddity in the artistic world because of their openly conservative political views and their praise for Margaret Thatcher. George claims never to have been anti-establishment: "you're not allowed to be Conservative in the art world, of course", he says. "Left equals good. Art equals Left. Pop stars and artists are meant to be so original. So how come everyone has the same opinion? ... We admire Margaret Thatcher greatly. She did a lot for art.

Socialism wants everyone to be equal. We want to be different." The duo are monarchists and have said of the Prince of Wales: "We're also fond of the Prince of Wales: he's a gentleman." Jack Freak Pictures Jack Freak Pictures is, to date, the largest series of work created by Gilbert & George. According to Michael Bracewell “the Jack Freak Pictures are among the most iconic, philosophically astute and visually violent works that Gilbert & George have ever created.” The Union Jack and Gilbert & George are the two dominant pictorial images - appearing contorted, abstracted, and sometimes complete. The entire series is set in the East End of London indicated by flags, maps, street signs, graffiti and other less obvious motifs such as brickwork and foliage that can be found there. After showing at White Cube’s Hoxton and Mason Yard galleries the exhibition travelled to the Croatian Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb; The Kröller-Müller Museum, the Netherlands; Centro de Arte Contemporaneo de Malaga, Spain; Arndt & Partner gallery, Berlin; the Baronian Francey Gallery, Brussels; and the Bozar Center for Fine Arts, Brussels.

Gilbert and George N - O - P - Q - R - S - T - U - V - W - X - Y - Z Gilbert & George are two artists who work together as a collaborative duo. Gilbert Proesch[1][2][3] (San Martin de Tor, Italy , 17 September 1943) and George Passmore (Plymouth, United Kingdom, 8 January 1942) have become famous for their distinctive, highly formal appearance and manner and their brightly coloured graphic-style photo-based artworks. Early life Gilbert Proesch was born in San Martin de Tor in Italy, his mother tongue being Ladin rather than Italian.[4] He studied art at the Wolkenstein School of Art and Hallein School of Art in Austria and the Akademie der Kunst, Munich , before moving to England. George Passmore was born in Plymouth in the United Kingdom, to a single mother in a poor household. He studied art at the Dartington College of Arts and the Oxford School of Art, then part of the Oxford College of Technology, which eventually became Oxford Brookes University.

The two first met on 25 September 1967 while studying sculpture at St Martins School of Art, now Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, one of six colleges in the University of the Arts, London. The two claim they came together because George was the only person who could understand Gilbert's rather poorly spoken English. In a 2002 interview with Daily Telegraph they said of their meeting: "it was love at first sight".[5] They have claimed that they married in 2008.[4] For many years, Gilbert & George have been residents of Fournier Street, Spitalfields, East London. Their entire body of work has been created in, and focused on, London's East End, which they see as a microcosm.

According to George, "Nothing happens in the world that doesn't happen in the East End".[4] Singing and living sculptures Whilst still students Gilbert & George made The Singing Sculpture, which was first performed at Nigel Greenwood Gallery in 1970.[6] For this performance they covered their heads and hands in multi-coloured metalised powders, stood on a table, and sang along and moved to a recording of Flanagan and Allen's song "Underneath the Arches", sometimes for a day at a time. The suits they wore for this became a sort of uniform for them. They rarely appear in public without wearing them. It is also unusual for one of the pair to be seen without the other. The pair regard themselves as "living sculptures". They refuse to disassociate their art from their everyday lives, insisting that everything they do is art. The Pictures The pair are perhaps best known for their large scale photo works, known as The Pictures. The early work in this style is in black and white, later with hand-painted red and yellow touches. They proceeded to use a range of bolder colours, sometimes backlit, and overlaid with black grids.

The artists themselves frequently feature in these works, along with flowers, youths, friends, and Christian symbolism. In 1986 Gilbert and George were criticized for a series of pictures seemingly glamourizing 'rough types' of London's East End such as skinheads, while a picture of an Asian man bore the title "Paki". Some of their work has attracted media attention because of the inclusion of (potentially) shocking imagery, such as nudity, depictions of sexual acts, and bodily fluids (faeces, urine and semen). The titles of these works, such as "Naked Shit Pictures" (1994) and "Sonofagod Pictures" (2005), also contributed to the attention. A book, The Complete Pictures, 1971–2005, published in 2007 by Tate Modern, includes over a thousand examples of their art.[7] In May 2007, Gilbert and George were the subject of the BBC documentary Imagine, presented by Alan Yentob. At the end of the programme a picture entitled 'Planed' was made available as a free file download from the BBC and The Guardian websites for 48 hours.

People who downloaded the files could then print and assemble the piece, and thus own an original Gilbert and George picture for free.[8] In 2000 they moved galleries to be represented by White Cube and since 2009 by ARNDT in Berlin . Jack Freak Pictures Jack Freak Pictures is, to date, the largest series of work created by Gilbert & George. According to Michael Bracewell “the Jack Freak Pictures are among the most iconic, philosophically astute and visually violent works that Gilbert & George have ever created.” The Union Jack and Gilbert & George are the two dominant pictorial images - appearing contorted, abstracted, and sometimes complete. The entire series is set in the East End of London indicated by flags, maps, street signs, graffiti and other less obvious motifs such as brickwork and foliage that can be found there.

After showing at White Cube’s Hoxton and Mason Yard galleries the exhibition travelled to the Croatian Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb; The Kröller-Müller Museum, Amsterdam; Centro de Arte Contemporaneo de Malaga, Spain; Arndt & Partner gallery, Berlin ; the Baronian Francey Gallery, Brussels; and the Bozar Center for Fine Arts, Brussels.[9] Awards In 1981 Gilbert & George won the Regione Lazio Award (Torino), in 1986 the Turner Prize, in 1989 the Special International Award (Los Angeles), in 2007 they won the South Bank Award, as well as the Lorenzo il Magnifico Award (Florence). In 2005 they represented the UK at the Venice Biennale.

Their 2007 retrospective at Tate Modern was the largest of any of the artists who have had retrospectives there.[4] In December 2008 Gilbert & George were awarded Honorary Doctorates by London Metropolitan University.[citation needed] In October 2010, Gilbert & George were awarded the honorary title "Magister Artium Gandensis" by University College Ghent.[10] In November 2010 Gilbert & George were conferred with Honorary Doctorates by the University of East London[11] Political stances Gilbert & George are an oddity in the artistic world because of their openly conservative political views and their praise for Margaret Thatcher. George claims never to have been anti-establishment: "you're not allowed to be Conservative in the art world, of course," he says. "Left equals good. Art equals Left. Pop stars and artists are meant to be so original. So how come everyone has the same opinion? ... We admire Margaret Thatcher greatly. She did a lot for art. Socialism wants everyone to be equal.

We want to be different."[4] The duo are monarchists, and have said of the Prince of Wales: "We're also fond of the Prince of Wales: he's a gentleman."[4] Influences * Gilbert & George inspired two characters, Man Green and Man Yellow, Chief Constables of the Science Gestapo, in Grant Morrison's comicbook series The Filth. The two characters appear in pastiches of Gilbert & George's artwork, with the separate sections of the imagery acting as individual comic book panels.[citation needed] * In the book Man, Machine and Music, Pascale Bussy claims that the look Kraftwerk adopted between 1974 and 1978 was partly inspired by Gilbert and George.[citation needed] Images 1. ^ Guggenheim Collection: Biography 2. ^ Encyclopaedia Britannica: Gilbert and George 3. ^ The Oxford history of the twentieth century. Oxford University Press. 1998. p. 442. ISBN 9780198204282. 4. ^ a b c d e f Daily Telegraph: Gilbert and George: 'Margaret Thatcher did a lot for art' 5.

^ Interview with Gilbert & George, Daily Telegraph, 28 May 2002 6. ^ The Guardian: Nicholas Serota's obituary of Nigel Greenwood, 21 April 2004 7. ^ Robert Ayers (August 14, 2007). Gilbert & George Are Workaholics. ARTINFO. Retrieved 2008-04-15 8. ^ Imagine, documentary aired on BBC television, 8 May 2007 9. ^ White Cube. Jack Freak Pictures 10. ^ Tollenaere, Rudy. [1] Nieuwsblad. October 8, 2010. 11. ^ "East London the place to be", say ground-breaking artists [2] University of East London November 25, 2010. Further reading * Baudino, Isabelle; Gautheron, Marie, eds.

(2005), Gilbert & George, E1, Lyon: ENS Editions (to accompany an exhibition at the Musée d'art moderne de Saint-Etienne, parallel French and English texts) * Dutt, Robin (2004), Gilbert & George: obsessions & compulsions. London: Philip Wilson Publishers ISBN 0 85667 570 9 * Farson, Daniel (1999), Gilbert & George: a Portrait, London: HarperCollins * Farson, Daniel (1991), With Gilbert & George in Moscow, London: Bloomsbury * Fuchs, Rudi (2007), Gilbert & George: the Complete Pictures, Tate Publishing ISBN 978-1-85437-681-7 * Jahn, Wolf (1989), The Art of Gilbert & George.

New York: Thames & Hudson * Jonquet, François (2005), Intimate Conversation, London: Phaidon * Rosenblum, Robert (2004), Introducing Gilbert & George, London: Thames & Hudson catalogues * 2001: White Cube, London, New Horny Pictures * 2004: Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris, London E1 Pictures * 2004: Gallery Bernier/Eliades, Athens, Thirteen Hooligan Pictures * 2004: Sonnabend Gallery/Lehmann Maupin, New York Perversive Pictures 2004 * 2006: White Cube, London, Sonofagod Pictures

Question: Which duo won the Turner Prize in 1986 with a photo- piece entitled 'Coming'?
Answer: GILBERT & GEORGE